Because Life Is...
by Centaur
Summary: A great big Trinity fic. Her story before, during, and after the movie takes place. Something of a replacement for "My Reasons" which has been taken down.
1. FEAR

RATING: R ****

TITLE: Because Life Is…

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SUMMARY: The life of Trinity. A tale in four parts.

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RATING: R. Adult themes n' language n' stuff.

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CATEGORY: Hmmm… a little bit of everything, I guess. Pre-movie, movie, and post-movie. 

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SPOILERS: Tons. Almost the whole movie. So don't read this if you haven't seen it.

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DISTRIBUTION: Basically anywhere. Just make sure my name and email are with it, and notify me first, please.

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THANKS: I will be erecting a 50-foot-high monument in the honour of Mara Trinity Scully as soon as I either win the lottery or get my hands on a huge-ass piece of marble and some tools J . Because yes, she really DID review this entire bloody thing. I am forever indebted to her. 

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FEEDBACK: I love it. If you love my story, let me know. If you don't, then PLEASE tell me what I can do to fix it. I can't get better if nobody tells me what I'm doing wrong. If you send me flames, I will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action. Centaur82@aol.com

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AUTHOR'S NOTES: This crazy thing is the reason I've been gone for so long. In my meagre specks of free time between exams, essays, reading, and the occasional effort to maintain some form of social life, I was working on this monster.

A note to those of you awaiting a "Hollow Crowd" sequel—it's coming, I promise! 

Also--if you've read my past stuff, you might notice the remarkable similarity between parts of this and "My Reasons," my original fic. Here's why: this is a completely overhauled, re-vamped, vastly improved and lengthened version of "My Reasons," with a new title to match. The reason for this is simple: MTS, my faithful editor, was so kind as to point out a rather large plot hole in my original version that I, in my eternal genius, _completely missed_ when I was writing it the first time. And this plot hole was so huge that it took me a solid 40 pages to fill it. So, if you like, think of "My Reasons" as the skeleton around which this rather beefy piece was built. And please don't discount this just because you've read "My Reasons"--there's much more new stuff here. 

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DISCLAIMER: They aren't mine—most of the characters, some of the dialogue, and a pretty big chunk of the plot. They belong to the WB and the Wachowskis and stuff. And I ain't making one red cent off of this. The quotes at the beginning of chapter 1 and the end of 

chapter 4 are from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by my poetry god, T.S. Eliot. 

Whew, that intro was waaaaaay too long. Sorry.

Enjoy!

**__**

For I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

So how should I presume?

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**__**

BECAUSE LIFE IS…

Part I

FEAR

I had always made a point of never really _needing_ anybody. Long before I was unplugged, I learned that the only way to make sure anything was done right was to do it myself. Even when I was a kid, I was on my own. My father was an alcoholic ass-hole who beat my mother pretty much every night. Eventually, he killed her. Then he ran, and left me behind. 

I was nine years old. 

My aunt took me in for a while, but she never really gave a shit about me. She only did it because my mom's will said she had to, and apparently she had signed some legal document a few years before. It's like my mom knew she was going to die--I don't know why the hell she didn't get out of there when she could. 

My aunt was more than a little bitter about getting saddled with a kid out of nowhere, but that was fine with me because I was more than a little bitter about getting saddled with an aunt who despised me. As soon as I was old enough to go out alone, I basically stopped going home except to sleep. 

To kill time, I signed up for an after-school class on computer programming when I was fourteen. By the end of the first month, I had mastered C++, Java, and VisualBasic. The rest of the class was still struggling with html. Computers just made sense to me; they did what I told them, and they didn't fuck up unless I did. They were reliable, and I liked that. Before long, I could hack my way into—or out of—anything. 

When I learned about the Matrix, I knew it was real. It was in the computer, so it was real. I knew that even though I didn't know what the hell it was. 

That was when I really stopped giving a damn about anything at all. I moved out of my aunt's house and kept a shitty day-job so I could focus on the Matrix. And Morpheus, he had the answers. I had to find Morpheus. 

I met Kurt at a party when I was seventeen. He was twenty and had his own apartment near the university campus where he went to school. Right away, I knew we would hit it off—he was the only person I'd ever met who had more holes in his face than I did. I had fourteen: ten in my ears, one in my lip, one in my nose, and two in one eyebrow. He had sixteen: nine in his ears, one in his tongue, two in his nose (nostril and septum), one in his lip, and three in his eyebrows. I moved in with him three weeks later. Yeah, it was stupid of me, but at that point, I just wanted to get the hell out of my aunt's place. 

For four months, I lived with him. I worked when I could and chipped in on rent when I had money. At first, it was great—I went to school, came home, and worked on Morpheus for a few hours. But then, those few hours got longer and longer until after school just wasn't enough time. At first I just cut my afternoon classes, keeping my grades up by hacking into the school mainframe and changing them as often as I wanted. Then I just started skipping the whole day, until eventually, I dropped out completely, three months before graduation.

Kurt found out.

He wasn't happy.

I woke up the next morning to find my stuff packed up by the door with a note telling me to be gone by the time he got back from class. I had to go beg my aunt to take me back in. 

So yeah, the idea of depending on anyone for anything had really become anathema. After all, the only person who would always be there for me was me. Nobody else gets credit or blame. It's all me. 

Morpheus' first act as captain of his own ship was to recruit me. I found out later that an encounter with an Agent had left the entire plugged-in crew of the Nebuchadnezzar dead save for him, the then second-in-command. He told me that his previous captain had been a popular man--soft spoken and a friend to everybody on board, always trying to please as much of his crew as possible. This had made him completely incompetent, and it was only through insubordination that Morpheus had managed to finish that mission alive. 

The group had actually pulled off the near-impossible feat of outrunning Smith, managing to lose him in the tangled alleyways of the inner city. That done, Tank had informed them that the nearest exit was a payphone in the heart of the bustling downtown area. Both Morpheus and the Captain said that to use an exit in a public place when agents were on the prowl would be absolute suicide, and Morpheus had asserted that they should use the exit in the Heart O' the City Hotel, a mile further away. The group had protested, insisting that the safest exit would be the closest one. When it became clear that the Captain would follow the requests of the crew and that none of them would listen to Morpheus' reasoning, Morpheus had defected from the group. And sure enough, the rest of the crew was slaughtered before they even reached the exit. 

Morpheus had gone into hiding for weeks after the incident, overcome with guilt at not having been able to save the rest of the crew. But both Tank and Dozer realized that it had been a lost situation. They had worked under the same captain, and they told me that in hindsight, Morpheus had been right. They grieved for their parted crew, but knew that it was the previous captain's desire to please the crew that everyone had died. He hadn't wanted to upset them. So that was the first message ingrained into my head when I was freed: you get emotional, you get dead. 

So the armour that I had carried over with me from the Matrix thickened until it became my skin, and that was all they could see of me. What they didn't know, though, was that every night I would lie in my cot and remember the few beautiful things I had found in my previous life: making lunch with my mother… finding my first bicycle under the Christmas tree when I was five… the time I spent with Kurt before everything went to hell… Even if I had to encase it in a bulletproof shell, my heart would not turn to stone in my chest.

The first few times they tried to send me into the Matrix, I refused because I didn't know for sure that they would pull me back out. I mean, I liked them well enough, but to leave my helpless body in the hands of people I didn't know—like hell. Now that I had my mind in my real body, there was no way I was letting it out again. Any help I could give the resistance I could give them from the real world. 

Tank and Dozer hated me within a few days because I was such a bitch about everything. I know I was. But I didn't care. The fact that they hated me made me even less willing to jack in. If they decided they didn't want to let me out, then I didn't come out. So I wouldn't go in. 

It was Morpheus who first forced me to loosen up a little. I don't even remember what he told me—I swear to God, that man could convince a duck to bark like a dog if ducks existed anymore. And that's how it started. Tank and Dozer decided I wasn't so bad once they understood my problems… or at least the face that I put on my problems. I was nervous, I told them. They were ok with that. But still, when I was in and fighting, I was no altruistic sop. I thrilled in risk-taking, but I never let myself forget that it was _my_ ass on the line. 

I became pretty attached to Morpheus, Tank, and Dozer, and eventually to Switch, Mouse, Apoc, and, unfortunately, to Cypher when they all joined up. But I didn't trust any of them completely. That was one risk I was not going to take. You get emotional, you get dead. _So don't get emotional_. I convinced myself that if something happened to them, I'd be sad for a while, and then I'd move on. It was nothing against them personally, but it was _my_ life. _Mine_. And I was not parting with it for anything or anybody. Period.

And then there was Neo.

When the Oracle told me I would fall in love with the One, I was insulted as hell. To fall in love--that was the ultimate weakness. The ultimate dependency. Like hell I was going to let it happen to me. _Like hell._ But then I saw Neo on the net… and I just started watching him. An innocent fascination, I thought. After all, Morpheus said he was important. Purely innocent.

It was me who first noticed that the Agents had found him, and my initial assumption was that it would mean we would have to let him go. That's what usually happened—going after a "noticed target" was never worth the risk. They were almost always bugged, and no matter how promising the coppertop looked, they were basically never worth risking the asses of everyone on the ship. But for some reason, Morpheus was insistent with this guy. We had to warn him, he said. And I was the one sent in to do it. 

Nobody was surprised that I was the one chosen. Morpheus was out of the question because he attracted Agents like bees to honey. Everybody recognized him. He was Morpheus, after all, the most notorious terrorist since the Unabomber. Mouse was too young and inexperienced to be entrusted with such a mission. Apoc, Cypher, and Switch were muscle. They were all excellent fighters, and all three possessed an incredible ability to think on their feet in crunch situations. Especially Apoc. When things looked hopeless, he was the man with the plan. But this particular mission required subtlety and tact; we had to scare him enough to keep him on his toes, but not enough to scare him off his pursuit of the truth completely. And I could do it.

The human mind is fraught with emotional barriers erected as a means of self-preservation. We had to get inside those barriers, to soften the coppertop's mind and open it to whatever it was we needed to tell them. And though nobody ever came right out and said it, we all knew that sexual tension was the most effective means, especially with the lonely people that we were almost always dealing with. When you plant the idea of sex in some poor sot's subconscious, defences come down and everything else somehow stops mattering. So that's what we did with Neo--we stuck him in a club that practically reeked of intoxicated hormones and then sent me in to deliver the final punch along with the message. Being a woman who looked good in black leather was an extremely useful asset, and one that I knew how to use very well. 

Usually, people from a ship other than the one that was chasing the target would go in and do this kind of work, because the kind of close, tense contact that was required had the potential to make the post-unplugging relationship between the people involved a little bit awkward. That was Choi and DuJour's regular job. Morpheus wouldn't trust anybody else to do it this time, though. He was absolutely paranoid about some other ship coming in and stealing Neo out from under his nose. It didn't bother me to go in—I had always thought that the custom was unnecessary, anyways. Nothing that happened in the Matrix was actually happening, and once the newbies understood that, they learned that occurrences in the Matrix had no bearing on the real world. What happened in the Matrix stayed in the Matrix. 

At least, that's what I had always believed.

There are certain hacker stereotypes that we all came to recognize as we watched more and more people get unplugged. There were the "hermits," who lived in ratty sweatsuits and whose skin was sallow from never seeing the light of day. That had been Mouse and Apoc. There were the "nerds," with clothes that didn't fit and glasses as thick as the bottom of Coke bottles. That had been Cypher. And then there were the "gothic hackers", who wore too much leather (or too little leather, I suppose, depending on your perspective) and did too many drugs. That had been Switch and me. And this club—this was a gothic club. 

I could have picked Neo out in that club even if I hadn't known what he looked like from those countless hours of watching. His T-shirt and jacket among the leather-and-steel made him stand out like an Agent at a rave.

I approached him slowly, from the side, hands concealed, face up and clear, not coming too close until he had noticed me. This was a mathematical process, structured and formulated. Knowing when and how to enter his space was key. And then—there—that turn of the head, the crossed arms—he's still guarded, but he's ready.

"Hello, Neo."

His posture immediately became defensive. He looked at me, then turned away. "How do you know that name?"

"I know a lot about you." _Oh, yes, Neo. I know more than you would ever believe._

"Who are you?"

"My name is Trinity." _Come on, little fishy…IRS D-base IRS D-base IRS D-base…_

"Trinity… THE Trinity? Who cracked the IRS Kansas city D-base?" _Bingo._

"That was a long time ago."

"Jesus…"

"What?"

"I just thought… uh… you were a guy." 

__

Ha. You and everybody else. Well, I'm not, and right now, it should be painfully obvious to you. But… his voice… and those eyes… 

Damn, he really feels badly about it… 

Does he really care? What if—_No. Focus, Trinity. Procedure_. 

But… I wanted to get closer. I needed to get closer, but… I _wanted_ to get closer… _Watch it. Just answer him_.

"Most guys do."

"That was you on my computer…" There, the hesitancy. Already, he was breaking. "How did you do that?"

"Right now, all I can tell you is that you are in danger." _Closer… must get closer…_yes… _NO! Dammit, Trinity, FOCUS! _ "They're after you, Neo. I brought you here to warn you." 

"What?" He was so innocent. Part of me was angry that we would be stripping him of that innocence. That openness… so like a child… and yet…  
"Please just listen." _Closer… the innocence…closer…ah, procedure be damned_. 

I didn't even notice when his arms dropped from where they had been crossed at his chest. It was a signal I should never have missed, but my head was spinning in a way that I couldn't control. I blamed it on the haze of pot smoke that clouded the room like fog. 

__

Just keep talking, Trinity. 

"I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing. I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone and night after night you sit at your computer. You're looking for him." 

I knew I was too close. Too close to him. Morpheus would get pissed, later, and go on about how unprofessional I'd been. But I couldn't… _wouldn't_… move away. 

"I know because I was once looking for the same thing, and when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did." _Oh, god, I'm going to choke…the weed…too close… he's--_

"What is the Matrix?" _Yes._

"The answer is out there, Neo. And it will find you, if you want it to." _Done. Get away, Trinity. You're finished here. _

But for a moment, I couldn't move. 

__

Get AWAY! Too close, Trinity, you're too close…get AWAY… 

The scent of him lingered with me as I tore myself away. The queasiness—the pot had nothing to do with it, I realized. Through the stench of weed that permeated the room, beneath the faint herbal scent of his shampoo and the biting edge of his after-shave, I could smell _him_, and with every breath I took, it seeped like a drug into my lungs and a burned an ever-increasing hole somewhere near where my stomach should be. It hurt, and the sting followed me into the real world. I realized what was happening, and I remembered the Oracle. I thought of Morpheus's near-obsessive possessiveness of this guy. The pieces were sliding into place, and the picture scared me more than I would ever care to admit.

I wasn't certain, yet, that I loved him, but the seed was planted and the idea remained in the back of my mind. But I would be damned if I was going to let this "love" bullshit get the best of me. _You get emotional, you get dead._ Nobody would know anything. If I ignored it for long enough, the hole would close. And that's what I did—or tried to do. I shoved the void way down to the pit of my stomach and tried as hard as I could to pretend it wasn't there. 

All of us save Mouse went in for Neo's unplugging. We went by the usual routine: Morpheus got him to the Adams Street bridge, and we picked him up there. Switch and I slipped instinctively into our good-cop bad-cop roles; without fail, the newbies would succumb to one or the other of us. Neo was like a deer in headlights when faced with the business end of Switch's semi-automatic, and for a moment, my heart went out to him. Just for a moment. And the hole in my stomach burned. 

For an instant I was afraid that Switch's classic "our way or the highway" quip would actually scare Neo off. He was too old to believe in unreasonable risk-taking, and his instinct for self-preservation was strong. It was up to me to gain the trust that we would need from him in order to perform the bug extraction—a procedure which was nerve-wracking at best, and excruciatingly painful at worst. He opened the door and moved to get out.

"Neo, please, you have to trust us." The words spilled out before I even realized what I was saying. This would have to come off the cuff.

"Why?" 

I cringed inwardly. This was going to be delicate. But we couldn't lose him—Morpheus would have had our heads on silver platters.

"Because you've been down there, Neo. You know that road." His features softened as he looked out through the open door. "You know exactly where it ends."

Even his posture reflected his uncertainty. I needed a kicker, a final hook that would pull him back into the car.

"And I know that's not where you want to be." Perfect. 

With a stifled groan, he settled back into his seat and slammed the door. 

He made little effort to conceal his fear after the bug was removed. Though he wouldn't have believed it, we all knew what was going through his head: it had been a nightmare…just a nightmare…but then it wasn't anymore...it was real…it was real and somehow these people knew about it. Apoc struggled to conceal his sympathy: he, too, had been bugged and had been through the terrifying removal process. But my sympathy was drowned out by frustration as I tried, in vain, to stifle the feeling that I had just taken a blow to the stomach. It was the smell, again. I could smell him, and it was overpowering me. 

When we unplugged him, he was in the worst shape of anyone I had ever seen. He was old—too old, as Cypher was always quick to remind us—and for a long time we were concerned that our ship lacked the facilities to rebuild his muscles to the degree that he needed. Thank God for Dozer's medical genius. 

Cypher was pushing for us to head straight down to Zion to have him rebuilt there, but Morpheus wouldn't hear of it. We already had a full crew, so he knew that as soon as we set foot in Zion, Military Command would have whisked Neo off to another ship that needed the manpower more than we did. Morpheus wanted Neo for himself. Finally, I got up the nerve to ask him why it mattered so much, and our leader's response was simple:

"He is the One."


	2. DOUBT

BECAUSE LIFE IS… **__**

BECAUSE LIFE IS…

Part II

DOUBT

I managed to convince myself that it wasn't true. I wasn't ready for it to be true. That old prophecy was just that: an old prophecy, a story told to the remaining humans to make us believe that there was still hope. And there _was_ still hope—I believed that resolutely—but it did not lie in some mystic superhuman messiah. I didn't care what the Oracle told me. There was no One. 'Mumbo-jumbo,' Cypher called it. And he was right.

Despite our scepticism, the speed at which Neo picked up the combat training caused even Cypher to gawk in amazement. Not even the most cynical of us could deny that this guy was very, very good. We had all expected that Neo would face Apoc in his first sparring match because they were about the same size, and Apoc had the patience of an Agent when it came to training newbies. But instead, he faced Morpheus right away, and came very close to beating him. There was only one person on the ship who could beat Morpheus, and that was me. As I watched Neo, though, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I would be dethroned as the Neb's best fighter. And the void in my stomach grew.

Neo was so good in the sparring program that Mouse was expecting him to actually make his first jump. The rest of the crew was amazed by Neo's abilities, but not _that_ amazed. Nobody had ever made the first jump. Hell, nobody had ever even made the _third_ jump. The fourth jump was the best anyone had ever done. Morpheus made it on his fourth. I had made it on my fifth, which was still an impressive achievement. But as I watched Neo's quietly determined face on the monitor, I had the feeling that he might be different. I _wanted_ him to be different. And, before I realized what I was saying, a whispered encouragement of "come on" escaped my lips. For a moment, I almost believed. I _wanted_ to believe. 

Mouse glanced at me sideways before returning to the monitors just in time to see Neo connect harshly with the pavement. The pang of disappointment that suddenly overwhelmed me was terrifying, and I sought the privacy of my room to try to clear my head.

My reflection was interrupted an hour or so later by a tentative knock on the door. I groaned in response. 

"Cypher, if that's you, leave me the FUCK ALONE!"

The door slowly creaked open.

"Trinity?"

I pulled my arm up from where it was resting over my eyes, and turned my head toward the door. It was Mouse.

"Oh… Hi, Mouse. What's up?" I tried to conceal my frustration at being disrupted.

"Umm… we all just finished eating, and, uh, since you weren't there, I thought I'd come and make sure you were okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just not hungry. Thanks." I dropped my arm back over my eyes, expecting him to leave.

"Trinity?"

"Yeah?"

"You like him, don't you."

I managed to maintain my composure. "Excuse me?"

"Neo. You like him." I wasn't used to the seriousness and hesitancy that replaced the customary sarcasm in his voice.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I… I don't think I am being ridiculous, Trinity."

"Maybe that's because you just don't think," I retorted, only half joking. He laughed.

"Listen…uh… I really mean it, you know. When I say that denying your impulses is denying what makes you human. And you… well, shit, you're the only one on this ship who doesn't use my sims from time to time. I… I think it's ok not to want to be alone all the time, don't you?"

I chose not to dignify that with a response.

"Well… I guess I'll go now." He opened the door to leave. "Uh, Trinity, he didn't eat anything before he went to bed, so…" He slipped out of the room without finishing.

An hour or so later, my head was no closer to being clear. I had managed to stifle the confusion, though, so I got up with the intention of eating some dinner. In the corridor, I could hear the sound of somebody working at the consoles, but everybody else had disappeared for the evening. 

The goop was even more unappetizing than usual that night. I sat at the table and stirred it around for a few minutes without eating a bite. I thought about Dozer, who had a wife and a kid back in Zion. Tank had a girlfriend. Hell, even Switch had found a lover in Zion—a woman from another ship that was taking leave at the same time we were. _Even Switch had someone, and she'd been freed, what, four years after me? _ My mind wandered to Mouse's sims, which I had long ago sworn never to use. To Mouse. Shit. Behind that kid's funny-looking face, there was a damn insightful human being. And then, without really realizing what I was doing, I put the bowl of slime on a tray with a tin of water and a clean spork and found myself outside Neo's room.

He was sprawled out, fully dressed, on top of his blankets. Even his boots were still on. I walked over to his bed and set the tray down where he would be sure to see it, and it wasn't until I looked up that I realized how close I had brought my face to his. With supreme effort, I resisted the urge to lean in and inhale the scent of him, to reach out and touch the stubble on his head, the smoothness of his cheek. I could almost feel him breathe. 

Almost.

I wasn't expecting Cypher to be waiting for me outside Neo's room. Cypher was my good friend, but lately, he had started to unnerve me. Every now and then I would catch him staring at me strangely when he thought I wasn't looking, and he had started appearing out of nowhere at the strangest times when I was alone. I had known for years that he wanted me, but he had always been more or less a gentleman about it, before. He had no talent for subtlety in his flirtation, and it usually manifested itself into ridiculously exaggerated compliments and random acts of kindness. 

He knew that I was off-limits to him, and that if he ever so much as laid a finger on me without good reason, he would wind up crippled or castrated and probably both. But the flirtation had been dissipating over the past few months, and instead he was pulling these sneaking-up-on-me-in-dark-corners tricks, and there was something unnatural about the way he could slip in and out of the shadows on the ship.

"I don't remember you ever bringing me dinner." He tilted his head at me slowly, like he was judging me. Measuring me, somehow. "There's something about him, isn't there?"

His expression made me distinctly uncomfortable. I dodged the question blatantly: "Don't tell me you're a believer now."

"I just keep thinking if Morpheus is so sure, why hasn't he taken him to see the Oracle?" What was his problem? Who did he think he was, challenging Morpheus? I felt scrutinized. This little conversation clearly mattered to him. It was then that I realized that I truly did not trust this man anymore. The part of him that scared me had overtaken the part of him that used to be my friend.

I hardened my gaze in defence. "Morpheus will take him when he's ready." With that, I turned on my heel and left him, suddenly intent on nothing more than to get away as fast as possible.

Neo made the jump on his fourth try, which was especially remarkable considering his age. We developed an easy friendship, but every now and then I would catch Mouse looking at us sideways with his crooked adolescent grin. I ignored it selectively.

Morpheus told me the day before we were to take Neo in to see the Oracle. I still bristled every time I heard that word… Oracle… But as Morpheus and I discussed security and approach strategies for the next day, the butterflies became overwhelming. Her words echoed between my ears: 

**__**

You have a fear of weakness, Trinity. It is your greatest fear. For a long time, it will overwhelm you, and you won't think you'll be able to stand it. But when he needs it, honey, when he needs you, it will become your strength. And you… you're gonna need him, too.

Who?

The One. 

What? What does the One have to do with me?

You're going to fall for him, child. In love.

Part of me knew that it was coming true. Part of me wanted to admit to myself that the feeling in my stomach, like a vacuum, pulling at me from the inside… part of me wanted to admit that it was love. But the other part, the bigger part, the reasonable part, told that little part to shove it. I didn't know. I couldn't know. Because I wasn't going to let it be true. 

Not yet.

I passed him in the corridor when I was heading to my room for the night. From the toothbrush in his hand, I judged that he was heading to the lav before going to bed, too. I found myself watching him, analyzing him, trying to figure out what part of him made Morpheus so damn sure. Our eyes met, just for a moment, and he smiled in acknowledgement. I sought frantically for something in his glance that was more than platonic, and for a brief instant, I thought I could see something there.

And then, like a flame pinched out, it was gone.

"Trinity? Hey, are you OK?"

My eyelids fluttered open and the light streaming in through the open door momentarily blinded me. Pausing a moment for my eyes to adjust, I turned to face Switch, who stood hesitantly in the doorway.

"Yeah, I'm fine, why?"

"It's almost nine, Trinity--you overslept."

I surged out of my bed. "Shitshitshit!" Neo's trip to the Oracle! Of all the days to sleep in… I searched the room frantically for a clean change of clothes.

"Hey, it's all right! Take it easy. Just get dressed and grab some breakfast. We're shooting to head in within the next half-hour. You need anything?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks."

She closed the door behind her, and I was shut into the darkness. 

The bulb must have burned out, I realized, and that's why the lights hadn't woken me as they usually did. I fumbled around for my clothes and changed hurriedly in the dark, silently cursing Mouse for not having checked the bulbs the day before like he was supposed to. A quick drag of my fingers through my hair removed the uncomfortable sleep-tangles, and I made a mental note to thank Dozer yet again for convincing me to keep my hair short instead of letting it grow back to its pre-unplugging Matrix length.

I extended a hand to unlatch my door when a resounding explosion sounded from the other side. Startled into immediate action, I hauled the hatch open and raced out in the direction the sound appeared to have come from. 

The core.

Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there. The main support of the core had somehow broken free of its anchor, swinging loose and gouging a gaping wound in the side of the hovercraft. Tank was at the controls attempting furiously to regain control of the ship. And then, to my horror, my eyes rested on Morpheus. The weight of the broken beam rested fully on Morpheus' back as he attempted to keep it from falling on the injured person lying underneath…

Neo.

My heart caught in my throat. Instantly, I moved to help Morpheus lift the beam.

"Trinity!" That was Morpheus. "Trinity, pull Neo out! Don't worry about me! Save Neo, he is the One!"

I stooped to grasp the barely-conscious Neo under the arms, locking my hands together across his chest and pulling as hard as I could. 

"Neo! Come on, Neo, stay with me! I need you to help me!" In vain I tried to coax him back to coherence. "Please, Neo, he-"

"Trinity!" The cry coming from the direction of the hole cut my pleas short. It was Apoc's voice. 

He had fallen out, and was holding on to the outside of the ship. 

I stretched over as far as I could without letting go of Neo, attempting to see outside, praying that Apoc was within reach.

What I saw made me want to cry.

They were all out there. Mouse, Switch, Dozer, and Apoc clung desperately to the outside of the racing craft. Mouse was closest. I freed one hand from Neo and extended it towards the struggling boy, who stretched his frail hand to me…

I couldn't reach.

Suddenly, I felt Neo writhe in my arm as something pinched his already-trapped body. And Mouse cried out to me again, pleading for me to save him, he was too young to die just yet…

I stretched as hard as I could, reaching, straining…

I heard footsteps behind me, and with a turn of the head saw that it was Cypher, apparently unharmed.

"Cypher! Help me!" I begged.

He looked at me and smiled crookedly. 

"Cypher, what are you doing? Get Mouse!"

But he just started laughing as I continued to reach, straining for Mouse's hand, but unwilling to let go of Neo; a fierce, maniacal cackle that grated like rusty metal against my eardrums…

The sudden brightness in my room caused me to wake with a start. The lights. It was morning… a nightmare. Oh, God, a nightmare. My sweat-soaked clothing clung to me as I sat there shivering, holding my head in my hands and rocking gently to the rhythm of my own racing pulse.

We were all in the mess hall when Morpheus came in to officially announce that we were going in. The fear that festered behind Neo's eyes was not lost to me as he realized that he was about to find out for sure if he really was to be mankind's new messiah. What nobody knew was that my fate was being determined with his. Was he the One to save the world? _Was he the one for me?_

The wicked glint in Cypher's eye did not escape me when we met up inside. I tried as hard as I could to force myself to remember that it had just been a dream… a nightmare… a collection of randomly generated ideas produced by my brain in sleep. But I kept seeing him there, laughing over me, as I tried to decide which of my friends to save. The mere idea of it made me shudder. 

Without even realizing what I was doing, I started watching him. Supervising him. I knew I was unjustified—it was a _dream_, dammit—but I still couldn't shake my apprehension. Experience had taught me that instincts were usually things to be taken seriously, and my instinct on this particular situation was practically screaming that something was not right.

The car ride to the Oracle is not one easily forgotten. Mine was still engraved permanently in my memory in remarkable detail: the sun half-hidden behind the clouds, the smell of wet pavement from the recent downpour, the inordinately long line at the Baskin Robbins stand that we passed. It's like a sentencing, when you go to see the Oracle. But instead of learning how you're going to die, you find out how you're going to live. Neo attempted to cover his jitters with small talk—something I have never been good at.

"God…" It was an ironic word to mention on the way to the Oracle.

"What?" 

"I used to eat there. Really good noodles."

I stifled the urge to remind him that he had never really eaten there, and that the noodles didn't exist. He continued:

"I have these memories from my life… none of them happened." He turned to face me, unable to conceal the sadness that lurked behind his eyes. "What does that mean?"

"That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are."

"But an Oracle can." 

I nearly laughed at his scepticism that was so like my own. "That's different."

"How?"

I couldn't answer, because I didn't understand it well enough myself. Morpheus had told me once that she could see beyond the relativity of time, but that was the extent of what I knew.

The pain in my stomach was starting to become distracting again.

"Did you go to her?"

I answered without thinking: "Yes."

"What did she tell you?"

"She told me--" Suddenly, my self-preservation instinct kicked in. I didn't finish.

"What?"

His eyes were so innocent—the eyes of one recently freed, illuminated with truth but not yet marred with the darkness of killing, which he, like the rest of us, would eventually learn to do. The void in my stomach pulsed in time with my heart, and I had to look away.

The next hour passed in a blur of activity, and I remember it only in a series of horrible snapshots. Mouse's bullet-ridden corpse. Morpheus crashing through the wall. Cypher tripping and getting left behind as we fled the building. I don't remember any of it with any coherence until I stood in that TV repair shop, and as Neo lifted the ringing phone to his ear, I finally allowed myself to relax. And then the line went dead, and my millisecond of respite was over. With an inward groan of frustration, I pulled out my cell phone and dialled.

At the other end, Cypher answered.

"Hello, Trinity."

I didn't make the connection right away. "Cypher? Where's Tank?"

"You know, for a long time, I thought I was in love with you. I used to dream about you…" 

In his voice, I could hear the grating-metal edge of the cackle from my dream. Images came unbidden to my mind of the type of dream I knew Cypher to be capable of. I saw myself in one of those dreams.

Bile rose swiftly in my throat.

I choked down the taste of acid, forcing myself to ignore the revolting scene playing itself out in my head, and trying to keep my thoughts in the here and now.

"You're a very beautiful woman, Trinity. It's too bad things had to turn out like this."

It hit me with the force of a hundred Agents. "You killed them."

"I'm tired, Trinity. I'm tired of this war. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of eating the same goddamn goop every day. But most of all, I'm tired of that jack-off and all his bullshit." _Oh, no. Not Morpheus…_ "Surprise, asshole! Bet you didn't see this coming, did you?" Though I couldn't see him, I knew he must have been standing over Morpheus's body. "God, I wish I could be there when it happens. When they break you. I wish I could walk in just when it happens, so right then, you'd know it was me."

Anger boiled so hot in me that I could hardly speak. "Morpheus. You gave them Morpheus."

"He lied to us, Trinity. He tricked us. If you'd have told us the truth, we would have told you to shove that red pill right up your ass!" Again, I knew he was probably speaking to Morpheus's body, and the thought of him touching Morpheus sickened me.

"Cypher, that's not true. He set us free."

"Free!" The fury in his voice nearly made me jump. "You call this free? All I do is what he tells me to do. If I have to choose between that and the Matrix… I choose the Matrix."

"The Matrix isn't real." There had to be some way to reason with him. There _had_ to be.

"I disagree, Trinity. I think the Matrix can be more real than this world. All I do is pull a plug here. There, you have to watch Apoc die."

I spun to face my friend, trying to hide the terror in my eyes. He knew what was coming.

"Trinity…" Apoc begged me, but there was nothing I could do.

__

Nothing I could do.

He keeled over. Switch dropped the gun that had never, ever seen her drop and rushed to her best friend's fallen corpse.

"Welcome to the real world, huh, baby?" Cypher's voice took on the hissing edge of the snake that he was, and I couldn't hide the despair in my voice any longer. "But you're out, Cypher, you can't go back!"

"Oh, no, that's what you think. They're gonna re-insert my body. I go back to sleep, and when I wake up, I won't remember a goddamn thing."

I couldn't believe it. 

"Oh, by the way, if you have anything terribly important to say to Switch, I suggest you say it now."

I lifted my eyes to meet hers, and I know she knew she was next. More than anything, I hated the helplessness as I stood there, staring at her, knowing that she was about to be murdered and not being able to do a goddamn thing about it.

Her eyes rolled back into her head as she fell.

"Goddamn you, Cypher!" I stifled the tremor that shook my voice, more for Neo's benefit than my own. He looked so terrified and bewildered, standing there in the corner, not understanding at all what was happening. I squinted back the tears that stung my eyes.

"Don't hate me, Trinity, I'm just the messenger. And right now, I'm going to prove it to you."

Oh, God. Neo. 

I turned to him and there was an innocence in his eyes as they met mine. It was the same look he had had when we picked him up under the bridge that first day… a certain naivete mingled with fear… And I couldn't let go of his eyes. 

His eyes.

His beautiful, perfect, innocent eyes.

**__**

The One… You're going to fall for him, child. In love…

I loved him. 

Somewhere far away, Cypher was still talking.

I loved him. I loved Neo.

The confusion and the fear and the hollowness in my stomach…

I loved him.

And then, again, I heard Cypher.

"You never did answer me before. If you bought into Morpheus's bullshit. Come on, all I want is a little yes or no. Look into his eyes, those big, pretty eyes, and tell me: yes or no?"

And for the first time, I knew. "Yes." _Oh, God, yes._

The harsh ring of the telephone pierced the un-dead silence of the room, shaking me out of my frightened trance. I didn't even think to pick it up, until finally, Neo lifted the receiver and handed it to me. His closeness was the last thing my mind felt before it was sucked back into my body.

He had given them Morpheus. The jackass had given them Morpheus. 

I stood over the corpses of five dead crewmates, one a little separate from the others. Even in death, we didn't want his evil mixing with the complete goodness of the other four. The rage boiled up in me, and only with supreme effort could I resist the urge to crush Cypher's charred face beneath my boot, opting instead to join the living in their vigil over Morpheus. I was only half listening to Tank as he described the painful situation, and the only solution:

We had to pull the plug.

Incredulity overtook me. "You're going to kill him? Kill Morpheus?!"

"We have no other choice, Trinity."

I knew he was right.

Morpheus' alpha patterns were still normal, thank God. A mind so complex as his would take time to crack. But, I reasoned, not enough time, especially when there were only two of us left, one of which could not be permitted to risk death. It would be a suicide mission to try to rescue him. Absolute suicide. 

Somewhere far away, I heard Tank deliver a short eulogy for Morpheus, quiet thanks to the man who had been leader and father to us for so long. His hand slipped down and gripped the cable at the base of Morpheus's neck, and I closed my eyes against the pangs of grief that threatened to bubble to the surface—

"Stop." It was Neo. My eyes shot open, and I looked at him. 

"Neo, this has to be done." The gently assertive voice of Tank.

"Does it? I don't know. This can't be just a coincidence. It can't be..."

"What are you talking about?" Tank, again.

"The Oracle… she told me this would happen. She said I would have to make a choice…"

The Oracle. Always the goddamn fucking Oracle. But still, I had to ask: "What choice?"

A sudden determination set in his eyes, and without another word, he strode over to the consoles. A single thought overtook me: he was going to kill himself.

"What are you doing?" That was me.

"I'm going in."

"No, you're not." _Not if I have anything to do with it._

"I have to." The confidence in his voice was inspiring, but no amount of confidence would get him out of that alive. The frustration overtook me.

"Neo, Morpheus sacrificed himself to get you out. There is _no way_ you're going back in."

"Morpheus did what he did because he believed I'm something I'm not."

"What?" Now, he was just being ridiculous.

"I'm not the One, Trinity. The Oracle hit me with that, too."

I felt like I had been stabbed in the stomach. But it couldn't be true. It couldn't be, because I was certain, now. I knew.

"No, you… you have to be."

"I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm just another guy."

What the hell was he telling me? It couldn't be true. The knife in my stomach twisted.

"No, Neo. That's not true. It can't be true."

"Why?"

"Because…"

**__**

…your weakness…

No. I couldn't tell him. He couldn't know. Not now. Not ever. No dependency. None. _You get emotional, you get dead._

I heard Tank trying to convince him as I struggled with myself. There would be no stopping him, I could see that. Neo's words phased back into my consciousness:

"…because I believe in something."

Here it came.

"What?"

"I believe that I can bring him back."

_He's going to die. He's going to go in after Morpheus and I'm going to lose both of them. I'm not ready to lose him yet… I can't lose Neo… Shit._ I watched him as he punched in. _That moron. That fucking moron._

And then, with a sigh followed by new resoluteness, I took my place beside him at the console.

"What are you doing?" 

I looked up at him, incredulous. Did he really think I would let him go alone? Shit, he really _was_ a moron. "I'm going with you."

"No, you're not."

The words poured out of my mouth like water, my frustration blurring my mind. I turned to face him, my best don't-give-me-shit look fixed in my glare. "No? Well let me tell you what _I_ believe. I believe Morpheus means more to me than he does to you. I believe that if you are serious about saving him, then you're going to need my help, and since I am the ranking officer on this ship, if you don't like it, I believe you can go to hell, because you aren't going anywhere else." _Fuck you, Neo. We're doing this together whether you like it or not._ "Tank, load us up."


	3. CHANGE

The impeccable, infinite whiteness of the construct **__**

BECAUSE LIFE IS…

Part III

CHANGE

The impeccable, infinite whiteness of the construct. There's an eeriness to it, in its purity. 

White.

Empty.

Perfect.

If you take a space, any space, and empty it of all objects and matter, of anything substantial, that's what you have left. A construct. A pure, empty white void.

And there… Neo, talking on a cell phone: "Guns. Lots of guns." 

He looked like one of us, now. Black. All in black with black shades hiding his virgin eyes. I knew, though, that if I could have seen through the glasses, the innocence would have been fading. That sole figure of black in the field of perfect whiteness.

The guns came rushing at me as I approached him, racing from a nowhere that was infinitely far away.

For a moment we stood there, forcing ourselves to muster up the strength to do what we were about to do, fully aware that no amount of strength would be enough.

__

Not until he believes, I thought. I choked down the phrase as soon as it surfaced.

"No one's ever done anything like this before, Neo."

He looked at me, determination set in his stance. He picked up an uzi and snap-cocked it in one swift motion. "That's why it's going to work."

I hoped he was right. 

In combat, there is no time to be afraid. Instead, the fear attacks you in anticipation, riddling your stomach with holes before a single bullet has been fired. I didn't want to let him enter the building first—we didn't know who or what would be awaiting us. Tank assured us that the lobby level was safe, but this didn't seem a good time to depend on the predictability and structure of Matrix code. Things were slipping out of their pattern, I could feel it. 

I knew that the reason was standing beside me, wearing black. 

I should have insisted that I go first, but the fact remained that this was his show. I had no idea what his plans were, or even if he had any at all. So I had to suppress the frustration and follow, hoping against hope that some of the abilities he denied having would manage to push their way through his scepticism. 

I entered with the bomb moments after the first shots had sounded, the metal detector resolutely announcing my entrance like some half-wit crier. Instinctively, I took out the guard as he called for backup, but I knew it was too late. I took my place alongside Neo, matching strides, and at the same moment we threw aside our spent weapons. I had hoped that we could make it to the elevator before the main security block arrived, and then could let the bomb take care of the rest of them. The sound of quickly approaching footsteps drowned out that hope, though, and we stopped to face the onslaught. 

They jogged in, dozens of people dressed in the same intense black as we were. "Freeze!" 

I turned to Neo and saw my own determined reflection in his glasses. Without another thought, I dropped the bag and dove for cover as Neo jumped to the other side. Adrenaline surged and healed my shattered stomach, and the thrill of the fight took over. 

I lost count of the number of coppertops I took out in that brief few minutes, and the specifics of the battle elude me. Every move you make is a reflex, there's no time for processing. It's frustrating, sometimes, fighting them, because there's so much they don't know. The unfairness of the situation is horrific; we fight the machines, and yet it is only the humans that get killed. Only unsuspecting slaves. 

But then again, I guess they were never really alive to begin with.

I wondered how the machines would manage to cover that one up.

The bomb was still sitting exactly where I'd dropped it by the metal detectors. I picked it up and met Neo at the middle of the room. 

The elevator doors closed behind us with a "ding" that echoed off of broken columns and broken bodies, heralding our departure and shutting the carnage away.

I shed my coat and stooped to arm the bomb as Neo hit the emergency stop and pried open the ceiling hatch. I set the timer and followed him up through the roof of the car, where he was already clasping his harness to one of the cables. He shot the binding of the first cable and I relaxed instinctively, absorbing the shock of the car's slight fall with my knees. Without a word I stepped over to him, forcing myself to ignore the heat in my gut as I pressed my body against his, one arm around his shoulders, the other firmly holding the cable. His muscled arm snaked around my waist, much stronger here than in the real world

… the closeness… 

…the closeness was almost overwhelming. 

And then he looked up and whispered something I didn't understand, something about a spoon, and I made a note to ask him about it later as he shot the second cable and the elevator counterweights yanked us up through the shaft. 

I barely noticed the rush of hot air that surged up as the bomb hit bottom. 

The scrimmage on the rooftop was, for the most part, hardly even a fight. The simplicity of it unnerved me—there were Agents in the building and coppertops all over the place, and yet all we ever had to fight were drones. SWAT guys, again, just like in the lobby. For Christ's sake, you'd think that after we single-handedly kicked the asses of two full units, they'd leave us the hell alone. No such luck, though. They really were drones. Suicide machines. 

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Neo was holding his own quite nicely; his training wasn't finished, but apparently it was good enough. He reverted to hand-to-hand when his "lots of guns" started to run low, and did just fine with it. I kept an eye on him anyways, though, nailing the one guy who came a little too close with a well-aimed knife through the eye. The last batch of feds who came at me were on the ground in seconds, and I turned to see how Neo was faring. At the same time, he turned to face me, and—

Oh, damn. That guy in the back, there by the edge, in the helicopter—he wasn't dead. He wasn't dead… and now… oh _shit_--

An Agent. It was an Agent. I knew this had been too easy.

I tried to scream, to warn Neo, but my voice froze in my throat. Neo was looking at me, and he could see, he could _see_, but I couldn't scream, oh God, I couldn't scream, and--

Recognition flashed in his features, and he froze. 

What the _hell_ was he doing? 

Suddenly, he spun on his heel, pulling his last remaining guns from their holsters on his thighs, and fired. He emptied both clips, and of course, the Agent dodged every single bullet, despite my burning hope that maybe, just _maybe_, he could pull it off.

"Trinity!" His voice snapped me out of my daze just in time to see the Agent pull his gun— "Help!"

__

No, Neo! 

Some morbid corner of my mind dared him to prove it, to prove himself now, to take this perfect chance and force himself to realise what he was actually capable of. But that thought was gone as soon as it came, and as I heard him call my name I realised that I had to protect him. It was my duty to protect him, but more than that—I _needed_ to protect him. 

A sudden understanding hit me like an axe to the skull: I would have to get between him and the Agent.

I would have to take those bullets.

But before I could move, before I could tackle his RSI to the ground and cover it with mine, the first horrific shot was fired, and—

It happened. 

Neo became a blur of motion as the bullets came at him. His body was bent impossibly back, his arms flailing, torso twisting, bullets flying—

He looked like an Agent. He was moving like an Agent.

And then, an instant later, he was on the ground, and the bullets stopped, and he was still alive. 

He was still alive.

But so was the Agent. 

The Agent walked up to Neo's fallen body, and I saw what was going to happen. Without having to think, I ripped a .45 off of some dead SWAT guy and slipped around behind the suit. I heard the click of his pistol cocking as he aimed, and his parting words to Neo:

"Only human."

__

Oh yeah? "Dodge this." My gun was pressed to his temple, and I fired.

A flicker of electricity, and a dead SWAT heli-pilot fell to the ground in front of me. 

Neo was still on the ground, and I extended a hand to help him up, my confidence returned. I knew for certain, now, that he was the One, but the question remained: did _he _believe? I had to push him. He—I—_WE_ needed to know.

"How did you do that?"

He looked at me, bewildered. "Do what?"

"You moved like they do. I've never seen anybody move that fast." _Come on, Neo, admit it. You know it as well as I do._

"It wasn't fast enough." He pointed to a surface wound on his shoulder, and I wanted to shake him, hit him, do whatever the hell it would take to force him to understand the truth. Well, almost anything… 

Anything except… 

The void in my stomach was burning with a heat as white as the construct. But it wasn't my place, anyways, I reasoned. Nobody could tell him he was the One, he had to know it for himself. And besides, we still had Morpheus to save, and we knew it would only be a matter of time before more Agents turned up.

At the same moment, we turned our gaze to the abandoned helicopter that sat by the edge of the building where the Agent had left it.

"You know how to fly that thing?" he asked.

There it was, again… that innocence. It was still there, in his eyes. He still didn't fully understand the way things worked for us, in the Matrix. Understandable, though—it was, technically, his first mission. "Not yet." Then, I pulled out my phone, and dialled up Tank. "Tank, I need a pilot program for a V-212 military helicopter."

For a moment, my head went blank as the directions were uploaded into my brain. The instant I opened my eyes again, I looked at Neo. "Let's go."

Using uploaded skills is always a bit of a trip the first time. I sat down inside that helicopter having never seen anything like it before, and I knew exactly how it worked, which buttons to push, which wheels to turn. And then, we were flying, me at the controls as Neo fed a round of bullets into the rear-mounted machine gun. 

I couldn't see what was happening behind me as I lowered the helicopter beside the building. The sudden gunfire was the only notice I had that we had found the right floor, and I struggled to keep us steady that close to the window. A moment later, the gunfire stopped, and I heard Neo's whispered encouragement: "Get up, Morpheus. Get up. Get up!" And then more shots, and again, Neo's cry: "He's not going to make it!" And then…

He jumped. He jumped out of my helicopter. I hazarded a glance behind just in time to see Morpheus and Neo collide in midair and then fall. I felt the sudden jerk as they hit the end of the rope, and I started to lift us up over the building.

More shots, and the fuel gauge started to drop frighteningly fast. There was a roof, there up ahead, I just had to get there… drop Morpheus and Neo, and then… well, fuck it, that's what I had to do, and as for my own sweet ass—well, I'd worry about that later. 

I felt them touch down as the warning alarm on the fuel gauge began to beep furiously. The needle was below the empty mark. There was no way I would be able to land this thing. The engine was sputtering, and I was falling—

Without thinking, I unstrapped myself from the harness and caught the other end of Neo's rope. A well aimed shot broke the binding, and then I was falling—or flying—into the side of a the building… praying that the rope would hold… praying that Neo would hold on to me.

The glass spider-cracked around me as I collided with the window, and I waited, expecting the rope to give or break and me to go falling into the cavern between the buildings. But then, no—I was moving up. I was being pulled up. And I looked to the roof, and there was Neo, looking over the edge, one hand moving at a time as he hauled me up to safety.

I didn't mean to fall into him like that. My arms, shoulders, and back were burning from holding my weight under the rope, and as soon as I got a foot under me, the rest of everything just gave out, and I fell. He caught me. 

And again, the smell. 

Oh, God, the scent of him. 

He had just saved me. I had put my life in his hands, I realized, and he had protected it at the risk of his own. And the void was a gaping wound in my stomach, and I thought that whatever was pulling at me from my centre was going to turn me inside out—

__

No. Not now, Trinity. Your independence, remember? Your strength? Don't get dead, Trinity. _He has to figure it out on his own, and you can keep your goddamn emotions to yourself._ It would break me if I told him. Not now. Not ever.

**__**

…your weakness… 

"Do you believe it now, Trinity?" That was Morpheus. I had almost forgotten about him. Before I could answer, though, Neo cut in.

"Morpheus… the Oracle, she told me--"

"She told you exactly what you needed to hear. In time you will learn, Neo, that there is 

a difference between knowing the path and walking the path."

__

Exactly, I found myself thinking. _I can know I love him. I just can't act on it._ My resolve was fading, though, and I knew it. I wanted to tell him, but… 

Morpheus was dialling up Tank, and they spoke for a moment before Morpheus pointed the direction, and started walking. When we reached the edge of the roof, he stopped, nodded one last time into the phone, and hung up. 

"Let's get out of here," I breathed, a little faster than I should have. I had to get us moving before all my emotions consumed me. I led the way, jumping to the next rooftop, the other two right behind me. The ease of it was still thrilling to Neo. He was grinning like kid in Disneyland when we stopped five buildings away.

The innocence was still there. He had just killed a few dozen men, but none of the guilty, hardened anguish that I knew festered in my eyes appeared in his. It was like he still wanted to believe the best of everything. I didn't even realize I was staring until his brown eyes met mine, and I saw his pupils adjust to focus, and then they were burning a hole right through into the very depth of my soul. He took a step towards me. I broke the gaze, turned, and disappeared as quickly as I could down the stairs, covering my discomfort by pulling out my phone and calling for the exit, letting it ring twice before I remembered that Morpheus had already called back on the first rooftop, and then hanging up before Tank could answer.

I stayed a few steps behind Neo the rest of the way to the exit. Maybe he really wasn't the One, I reasoned. Maybe he was just a regular guy who was damn good at freeing his mind. If he was the One, he would know it by now. He would have to. How couldn't he? He—well, _we_, I guess—had just saved Morpheus from three Agents, and gotten out alive. Maybe our fates contradicted each other. Maybe it all really was mumbo-jumbo. Maybe I didn't really love him…

Bullshit. That last one, I knew for sure. A few moments earlier, I had been prepared to put myself between him and an Agent—something which I had never even remotely considered before, for anyone. "No one can tell you you're in love," the Oracle had told me. "You just know it, through and through, balls to bones." _Know thyself_. Well, that much, I knew. I knew it, and it was killing me from the inside.

Morpheus caught up to me as I walked, but I was so caught up in my own world that I didn't notice him until he started speaking.

"Thank you, Trinity."

I looked up at him, not sure what he was talking about.

"For coming after me," he explained. "Thank you."

"I'm just glad you're safe, Morpheus."

"Yes, I am safe, and I have only you and Neo to thank for it. And I do thank you." A pause. "But, Trinity…"

"Yes?"

"You know you shouldn't have done it." There was no condescension in his voice, only concern.

"It wasn't my idea."

"What?" Confusion was written in his brow.

"Neo. He said something about the Oracle, and having to make a choice…" I let my voice trail off as my gaze drifted up and fixed itself on the gentle movement of Neo's back as he walked. "She told him he isn't the One, Morpheus."

He shook his head knowingly, a slight, cryptic smile on his face. "She told him what he needed to hear, Trinity. That's all." He looked at me. "Trinity… what do you believe?"

"I believe you know what I think," was my quipped reply before I turned and followed Neo down the subway steps.

The phone was already ringing when we arrived. Neo picked it up and handed it to Morpheus, then caught the dangling receiver and placed it back in the cradle. 

A moment of silence.

It was killing me from the inside, loving him.

What did I believe?

I believed it was killing me not being able to tell him.

**__**

…become your strength…

I had to tell him. Was this the right time? Was this the right place? No, not really, it wasn't. But I had to do it before the bubble in my gut broke and I broke with it.

"Neo, I want to tell you something…" He turned to face me, and those eyes, those perfect, still-virgin eyes… I nearly choked. "But I'm afraid of what it might mean if I do."  
The ringing phone echoed through the empty station, and we both ignored it. His face was crumpled with concern, and I tore my eyes away.

"Everything the Oracle told me has come true. Everything but this…" I couldn't breathe. I was suffocating on the words, and…

_No_. Not now. _Not ever, Trinity. Not EVER_.

A train rushed by, and I seized the distraction to step forward and pick up the receiver. I turned as I held it to my ear and _HOLY FUCK A BULLET AN AGENT_ and I was swallowed into the real world.

"Neo!" It came out before I even knew I was speaking. 

The receiver was shattered, which meant no entrance for me and no exit for Neo. I raced to the monitors as soon as I was unhooked, expecting to see Neo running for his life. Instead, he was standing perfectly still, facing the Agent in the desolate space of the subway station. And then, at the same moment, they ran and jumped, firing into the air, until they collided in the centre of the floor, both of their guns jammed tight to the other's head. A second passed, then they stood. Their lips were moving, so I knew they were talking. We have no sound translator on the viewscreens, and while I could have deciphered what they were saying directly from the Matrix code, I couldn't pull my eyes away from the sight of him on the screen.

A violent rattle tore me away from the Neo's image and over to his flesh-and-blood form as he shook and writhed in his chair. He was getting his ass kicked. And then, for a few minutes, he picked up, landing a few solid punches, and it looked like maybe, just maybe, there was hope.

And then he got pinned to a wall and the Agent was pounding him, fists moving so fast they didn't register with the monitory delay, and Neo was shaking violently in his harness—

"Jesus, he's killing him." And he was. I tore off a piece of my sleeve and used it to wipe the blood off of Neo's convulsing form.

The alarm sounded, and I raced with Morpheus up to the cockpit. Sentinels. 

"How long?" I asked him.

"Four, five minutes." He picked up a comlink, "Tank, charge the EMP." 

Despair seized me. "You can't use that until he's out!"

Morpheus exuded confidence as he looked me square in the eye, "He's going to make it, Trinity."

And somehow, I knew he was right.

I thought back to that moment at the subway. I had been able to see in Neo's eyes that he still didn't believe, and I knew I had to tell him. I had to. But that would be the end of the Trinity I had worked so hard to maintain—the one that really didn't give a shit. If I confessed now, there was no turning back. That was a bond, a _dependency_, that I was stuck with. 

So I stood there, watching him get the shit beat out of him by a machine. The words of the Oracle echoed once again inside my skull…

**__**

…your greatest fear… 

…your fear of weakness… 

…will become your strength… 

…your strength…

And I still couldn't say it. 

****

…fall for him, child…

… in love…

… the One… 

…fall for him…

And then I watched him get shot by a machine. 

**__**

…your weakness…

…strength…

…weakness…

…weakness…

…weakness…

Killed by a machine.

**__**

…become your strength…

…fall for him…

…in love…

…when he needs you…

And I still couldn't say it.

_ ****_

…in love…

…your weakness…

…will become your strength…

…your strength…

I watched him as he coughed and died. 

_ ****_

…in love…

…you're going to need him, too…

…need him, too…

…need him…

…needs you…

…NEEDS you…

…in love…

I watched the monitors go flat-line. 

**__**

…in love…

…need him…

…in love…

…the One…

…in love…

I watched his body go limp. Lifeless.

**__**

…the One…

…in love…

…needs you…

…in love…

…the One…needs you…

…your strength…

… in love in love in love in love in love in love in love in love…

I snapped. 

It was like an out-of-body experience. All of the sudden, my consciousness, and everything that went with it—my fear, my past, and even my pride, stepped out of me. It was like I was hovering in the air watching myself as I poured my heart out to his lifeless body.

"Neo, I'm not afraid anymore…" 

…in love in love in love in love in love in love in love… The words pulsed through me in time with the beating of my heart. …_in love in love in love in love in love…_

"The Oracle told me that I would fall in love, and that that man, the man that I loved, would be the One."

__

…in love in love in love in love in love in love in love…

"So you see, Neo, you can't be dead."

**__**

…your strength…

"You can't be."

**__**

…the One…needs you…your strength… to fall for him…in love…IN LOVE.

"Because I love you."

**__**

…your weakness…it will become your strength… your strength…

"You hear me? I love you!"

__

…in love in love in love in love in love in love in love in love in love…

I was still watching myself, but I could feel the void swelling inside of me, the burning hole, expanding until I felt like an empty cavity enclosed by nothing but my skin. I watched myself kiss him. Everything felt muted, subdued by my clouded senses. I watched myself as I tried to purge myself of the void in my stomach, to push it out through my lips to his and let him breathe it in, then breathe out, then breathe in again, revived. 

__

I love you. 

I watched myself gasp when he inhaled, and then suddenly command him to get up. I watched myself call him back from the matrix, screaming for him to get the phone. The laser of the nearest sentinel crawled towards us, and I watched as I threw myself over him, shielding his prone body with my own. 

The EMP surged.

__

I love you.

I watched myself smile and go teary-eyed as he woke up and looked at me… I watched myself stroke his cheek. The void was stretching and it hurt, it hurt so much for want of him.

__

My strength… in love… with him…the One… with YOU.

Then he kissed me. And as his lips touched mine, I rushed back into myself. I was living again, not just watching. I didn't want to miss this. Everything that had been muted raged back to normal sensation. His lips burned mine, and the void that had been burned out by his scent was now filled with his taste. I needed this. I _needed_ him. Like nothing before, I needed him.

I don't know how long we stayed like that. It could have been a few minutes or a few days, I don't know. I lost myself in him. I had never, ever felt so… _whole_. The void was gone and I felt full—crushingly, blindingly complete. This was the first time I had kissed a man outside of the Matrix, with my real lips. And feeling this, now, made me wonder how anyone could ever make do with the shallow sensation of the Matrix, with the subdued sense-experience that comes from the machines' inability to _feel_. Now, it was hitting me full-force. It stung beautifully.

The euphoria was temporary. Reluctantly, I pulled away. Neo would need immediate medical attention, and I knew it. He had survived in the Matrix, but this was the real world, where he was no more or less human than I was. I reached down and unplugged him, and then offered a supporting shoulder as he slowly stood up. He winced visibly as he rose, and leaned heavily on my shoulder. Within seconds, Morpheus, who had obligingly stayed away until this point, was there to support Neo from the other side, and Tank followed closely behind, though his own injuries prevented him from helping us. 

Nobody said a word as we walked, but my mind was racing at a million miles a minute. The fear started to trickle back. The old fear. The fear of dependency, the fear of attachment and need. As soon as I realized what had happened, the trickle turned into a flood. By the time we had brought Neo to the remains of the medic quarters, I was feeling it with the same full force that I had before. With it, the void came back. Not so all-encompassing as it had been just a few minutes earlier, but more the small pit-of-the-stomach hole characteristic of my earliest encounter with Neo. 

The fear took over. 

How could I have been so ridiculously stupid? To confess my love to him… shit. _You get emotional, you get dead, remember?_ I can't do this now. _I can't_. 

**__**

…your weakness…

I helped lay Neo down on the table in Medical, pulling his shirt off to reveal half-healed bloody chest wounds on a torso that was much thinner and weaker here than in the Matrix. I remembered the feeling of his arm around me back in the government building, firm and densely muscled. Here, his ribs still protruded like piano keys and his arms were more bone than flesh. It would be hard, now, for him to make the transition between realities, but I knew he could do it.

He was the One, after all.

Morpheus dug up some anaesthetic and a syringe, so we put Neo out for a while to cleanse his wounds and stitch up the worst ones. He needed a more permanent medical facility, one with better equipment and a power source that hadn't been ravaged by sentinels, to check for serious internal damage. Tank was online with Zion as we worked, sending for the nearest best-equipped ship in the quadrant. 

Neo began to wake just as Morpheus and I were cleaning ourselves up. I walked over to him and rested my fingers lightly on his clammy forehead.

"Rest, Neo." He closed his eyes obligingly. I left. 

Within hours, a nearby ship, the _Wintermute_, had picked us up. Neo slept fitfully for most of the two-day journey to Zion. I heard him call my name, once, during the night, while Tank was watching over him. I pulled my arm over my head when it happened, managing to convince myself that my staying away from him was the best thing for both of us. But when somebody knocked on my door a few minutes later, I knew that whoever it was probably had other ideas.

I didn't answer, but the door creaked open anyways.

"Trinity, may I come in?" It was Morpheus. 

"Morpheus… yes, come in." I sat up quickly and turned to face him. He leaned against the closed door, arms folded across his chest, head tilted down and slightly away from me.

"What's wrong, Trinity?"

"Nothing." _Everything_. 

"Hmm." He wasn't satisfied with that answer, and he knew it wasn't the truth. Morpheus knew me too well for lies; my mannerisms were second nature to him. 

"You know, if this were anybody but you, I would accuse you of being childish." He paused, and then shook his head, as though to clear it. He looked up at me. "But you… you were never a child. You've been mature your whole life. So tell me, why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you doing this to him?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied, knowing full well that he would see right through me. He could always see right through me. 

"I think you do." 

He didn't move for a moment, obviously expecting me to fill the silence. But I had nothing to say to him. With a sigh, he came and sat down beside me.

"Trinity… Did you mean what you told him?"

I became too fascinated with the lint on my blanket to answer. What could he do, pull rank and force me to see Neo? I still wouldn't go. I thought of Morpheus' insubordination. It had saved him, and that made it acceptable. Well, this would save both Neo and myself. I couldn't see Neo now—it just wasn't worth the risk. 

Morpheus was still looking at me. "That's what I thought." 

"You're jumping to conclusions, Morpheus."

"I know you too well to jump to conclusions."

Frustration began to boil up inside me. "Yes, you know me well. But with all due respect, sir, don't pretend to think you can read me like a book." My tone had taken on an icy edge that frightened even me.

I think Morpheus was more hurt by my formality than anything else, because he became more subdued, after that. "I think you need this."

I forced the edge out of my voice, but I was unable to keep it from shaking and I couldn't bring myself to look up at him. "Please don't pretend to know what I need." 

He recoiled like he had been hit.

A moment later, he stood up and moved to the door. A hand rested on the latch when he turned to face me again. When he spoke, his tone had lost all of its customary formality, and he sounded tired. Old, and tired. "It's been twelve years," he said quietly. "Twelve years since I unplugged you. From the statistics, we should both be dead, but..." his voice trailed off and he looked down again, rubbing one hand slowly over his bald head. "You know… I don't think of myself as superior to you. I haven't for years. It is only experience that defines my rank above yours. I would never be so disrespectful as to command your personal life. But you're like a sister to me, and I just hope you understand that I can and will be there for you." He sighed. "I have never seen you happy, Trinity. I just want to see you happy." With that, he slipped out the door, closing it quietly behind him.

I was still sitting there, picking at the lint on my blanket, when the lights came on the following morning.


	4. MINE

In Zion, we were installed in military headquarters **__**

BECAUSE LIFE IS…

Part IV

MINE

Soldiers on leave in Zion are required to stay in military headquarters.

The powers that be have always insisted that it's for our safety, although I've never been quite certain what they pretend to be protecting us from. Everyone has always known that the truth of it is that they want us at easy access, so that we could be sent out again at a moment's notice if ever the need arose.

I have always despised military headquarters. 

What was left of our crew was assigned to a cell with four small sleeping quarters. These were identical to what we had on the Neb—only the warmer temperature, the slightly unusual scent of the air, and the notable absence of the sound of whirring machinery reminded me that I was not on the ship when I woke up each morning. 

Neo was assigned to a bed in the hospital. The medics there were amazed that anyone could survive wounds like those he had suffered. We knew that we couldn't reveal who he was--the uproar that the announcement would have caused would undoubtedly have killed him at that point. So instead we went along with them, pretended to share their amazement. As he spent most of the next few weeks asleep in recovery, Morpheus and I devoted our time to figuring out what to do next. 

We didn't need a mechanic's notice to tell us that the Neb was totalled. There was a new ship being built that we could probably have when it was completed, but that would take another several weeks or months. It was a hard time for all of us; none of us had ever worked on any other ship, and losing our home at the same time that we lost half of the crew was devastating.

Morpheus assigned me the task of supervising the construction of the new ship, while he dealt with the usual bureaucracy and paperwork that came with any kind of confrontation like ours. Though I'm sure he would have preferred my job, he's much better than I am at dealing with the incompetent council of free-borns that is assigned to "investigate and monitor abnormal occurrences in the Matrix." Fucking morons haven't ever seen the Matrix from the inside, but they're supposed to monitor it. There wasn't a single unplugged resistance fighter who could stand them. 

I did not visit Neo for the duration of his bed rest. I tried so hard to make everything work the way it had before. I had to be the same Trinity—strong, a little stoic, and, above all, absolutely independent. _You get emotional, you get dead._

When he was well enough to get up and help with the most basic tasks, I behaved no differently around him than I had before. He was my friend and fellow soldier, but nothing more. Nobody could know what had passed between us—if word got out, I was sure to lose credibility as a fighter, and people would definitely question my ability to lead with such clouded objectivity. 

__

You get emotional, you get dead. 

I could tell that I hurt him every time I rejected his advances… it nearly killed me to watch him turn away his brown eyes as I shrugged his hand off my shoulder, time and time again. The void was growing again. It hurt again. I felt like I was going to cave in on myself, but I had to stay strong, I couldn't give in. _I couldn't_. 

It wasn't long before I stopped sleeping. The void, the hollow in my stomach, was pushing out from deep inside me, stretching me. It was the same hole that had been burned out months earlier, at that dingy Matrix club, when I had met Neo for the first time. It squeezed at my heart and prodded at my stomach. I would lie on my cot night after night, tossing and turning under my blankets trying to force myself to ignore it. No such luck. 

Neo had been moved to the room next to mine, so only a thin metal wall separated our two beds. 

I could hear him. 

He didn't sleep either. 

There were so many times when I wanted to go to him, to give up and run to his side and hold him. I knew that was what we both needed. But I fought it. I clung to the notion that if I ignored my pain long enough it would go away. I could get over him. In the Matrix he was the One, but in the real world, he was just a man like any other. 

I'm not sure how many nights I lay awake listening to him toss and turn. I would lie there facing the wall, watching it vibrate lightly every time he struck it with an arm or a leg as he rolled over. Then one night, all of the sudden, it stopped. He had finally fallen asleep, but I could only wish for such a reprieve; I continued to lie restlessly, watching the wall, waiting for something to happen. 

The sudden click of my door being unlatched from the outside rattled through my metal cell. Instantly on my guard, I propped myself up on my elbow and turned to face the hatch as it opened. 

It was Neo, wrapped in the warm blanket from his bunk.

"I could hear you moving around in here, so I figured you couldn't sleep either," he said. 

Nodding, I sat up fully and arranged myself at one end of the bed, motioning for him to sit down at the other. He took care to leave plenty of space between us. His knees were pulled up in front of him, and he encircled them with his blanket—a formless, fuzzy beige cocoon with Neo's head protruding from the top. 

He reminded me of Mouse, sitting like that. Mouse always curled up with his blanket draped over his knees. The sudden pang I felt in my stomach surprised me… Mouse… He was so young… The pain I felt remembering all of my dead friends still unnerved me. This, in itself, was reason for me to want to keep away from Neo. If I was hurting like this over people I merely thought of as friends, what would happen if I were to lose a… a… I glanced up at him. The word 'lover' had come to mind, and I didn't like it. 

I had to get over this. I _had _to. The prophecy had been fulfilled, and now we had to move on. Suddenly, I really wanted him to leave, but my curiosity over why he had come got the best of me. For a few minutes, neither of us spoke. Then, finally, he inhaled sharply.

"I keep thinking of that day when you were taking me to see the Oracle. We talked about how none of my life was real, and I asked you what that meant. You… you told me that the Matrix could not tell me who I am. I understand that, now. But then, those last few minutes in the Neb, you told me who I was. You made me realize who I really am." He paused for a few seconds. "What does that mean?"

I smiled in spite of myself, recalling those two fateful incidents. "I don't know," I replied truthfully, "but really, I didn't tell you who you were. I told you—" My words caught in my throat. Neo looked up at me questioningly when I didn't finish. He opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head dismissively and seemed to think better of it.

"What?" I prodded him.

"I don't understand why you always do that. You cut off your sentences before you finish them, like you're afraid of what you want to say." He gathered momentum. "You need to say what needs to be said. You can't… you can't live your entire life swallowing your emotions because you're afraid of what might happen." His tone shocked me. It bordered on despair. "What's the point of being free if you can't even—"

The sound of my hand connecting with the side of his face resonated through the hollow cell. 

For a moment, we were both too stunned to speak; I hadn't anticipated my action any more than he had. I stared at my hand like it was an alien thing. He rubbed his jaw gingerly as he reluctantly lifted his gaze to meet mine, eyes brimming with a strange blend of pity and confusion instead of the anger I expected. Hot tears stung the back of my eyes, but I suppressed them along with my urge to apologize and looked away.

"I understand where you're going with this, Neo. But you need to understand something. None of us can afford to become too attached to each other. We need to be able to leave each other if one of us is in a situation that has gotten out of control, and we need to be able to recover from the loss. Especially you. You need to be able to leave us to save yourself. We are soldiers first and people second, and—"

"Are we? Is that what we are? What about Morpheus? He was beyond saving but we, you and me, we decided to fuck that and go after him anyways. And we won, Trinity, we WON! How is that different?"

My thoughts and emotions buzzed around in my head like so many swarms of gnats. A single one became coherent: _Shit, Neo, you still don't get it, do you? WE didn't go in after Morpheus, Neo. YOU went in after Morpheus. I went in after YOU._ It was true, but I wasn't about to tell him that. Instead, I gave him an answer that was not so much incorrect as it was incomplete: 

"Neo--in retrospect, we had no right to risk ourselves like that. Especially not you. Your life is worth more than Morpheus's, Tank's, and mine combined." I forced myself to continue as the guilt settled on his shoulders and made him hunch down further in his seat. "Of course I'm glad we did, but we're soldiers, Neo. We have to be able to sacrifice each other in the line of duty."

His voice was quieter, weaker, as he started again. "That's the second time you've said that. And yes, we are soldiers. We are the most elite, most important soldiers that this planet has ever seen. But what are we fighting for, Trinity? We're fighting for freedom in every possible sense. We're fighting so that every single person can have what we have. What's the point in being free if fear still controls us? What's the point?"

I couldn't respond. His insinuation of fear infuriated me, probably because it hit a little too close to home. At the same time, his words made so much sense… But they just couldn't work. They couldn't. 

"So what was it you were saying before? You didn't tell me who I was, but you told me…. What?" His persistence frustrated me, but all of the sudden, something inside me cracked. The void was pushing so hard that it broke something. Fuck it all. 

"I told you…" His eyes caught mine, and once again, my voice died in my throat. _You get emotional, you get dead._ I swallowed hard and started over, pointedly avoiding his gaze. "I didn't tell you who you were. I told you… who I… who _I_ was. Nobody could tell you that you were the One, Neo. You had to learn that for yourself. Me, I told you who I was, what I felt, the truth. And that's what you needed to hear to figure out for yourself who you were." There, it was said. "It can't work, Neo!" I pulled my knees up to my chest and crossed my arms over them, burying my head in my hands. The void and the fear were fighting each other in my head and my heart and my gut, and for a moment I felt nauseous with confusion.

Nobody spoke for several minutes. I didn't look up and I didn't look at him. Eventually, I was relieved to feel the bed move as he stood up to leave. He had wanted a confession, it appeared, and I had given it to him. He just couldn't understand, though… he couldn't... The door clicked shut behind him, and I shattered. I began to sob hopelessly into my arms, curled up like an infant in an effort to make the hurt stop. 

I was so absorbed in my own misery that I didn't hear the door open again or the footsteps moving toward me. I was caught completely off-guard by the two strong hands that took a sudden, firm hold on the sides of my head and forced me to look up. It was Neo.

**__**

…your weakness…

I grabbed onto his wrists and attempted in vain to free myself from his grip. I should have been able to do it—his muscles were still weak from both his relatively recent unplugging and his long period of inertia while he recovered from… _dying_. But my psychological weakness translated into physical, and I couldn't budge him. His brown eyes locked into mine. His thumb gently stroked my cheek, blotchy and puffy from crying. My whole body wracked in violent, uncontrollable shivers as the shame threatened to choke me—I hadn't cried since my father left. And now, here I was, bawling like a baby and trying desperately, though unsuccessfully, to hide it. 

"Trinity… What's the point of living in the real world if you're afraid to experience life at all?"

He wasn't expecting an answer. He just gazed intently into my eyes, and the void rose into my throat until I thought I would choke. 

Tears continued to trickle out of the corners of my eyes. "Neo… please, you don't--"

His lips covered mine, cutting me off in mid-sentence.

I was so taken aback that for a moment I forgot to kiss back and I sat there like a statue, unresponsive, with my hands still clutching his wrists. He pulled back and looked at me entreatingly, eyes searching mine for some indication of the emotion that he was no longer certain he would find there. His grip on my head loosened and his face expressed defeat, but I didn't move and I didn't let go of his wrists. Something inside me clicked, and in that moment, in that fraction of a second, everything made sense. 

**__**

…you're gonna need him, too…

I did need him. I needed him, and that was ok because he needed me too. _He needed me too_. The hollowness in my stomach—it wasn't the love. It was the emptiness and the want and the loneliness of having hidden myself away for so long. Love was what fixed the hole, what made it better, what could make me strong again. Long ago, I had sworn not to let my heart turn to stone in my chest. I had been successful at that. But to do it, I had walled myself away, hiding from anyone who came too close._ You get emotional, you get dead_… even if that was true, was I really alive at that point, anyway? Did anything really matter?

Yes.

Neo mattered.

I guess you could say it was an epiphany. As the wave of truth washed over me, I let my hands slip off his wrists. He moved as if to step back, heartbroken, thinking I was rejecting him. But before he could leave, I seized his head in the way he had held mine and held him there, just looking at him, marvelling at him. 

**__**

…become your strength…

My shivering subsided. _I could trust him_. Tentatively, I touched the purpling blotch on his chin, and I felt my eyes well up again. A single tear leaked out of the corner of my eye and dripped down my cheek, and the answering look of concern that appeared on his face threatened to melt me. I cupped my hand gently over the bruise, hiding it, wishing that I could forget that I had done that to the only person who...

"I'm so sorry." I whispered. I wasn't just talking about having hit him. I could tell he knew.

"Hey, it's ok… it's ok," he whispered so low I could barely hear him. He wiped my tear from my chin. "I love you, Tri-" I pressed my lips against his before he could finish. It was a desperate kiss, perhaps a little harder than I had meant it to be, but he didn't forget to kiss back, suddenly as desperate as I was. 

**__**

…you're gonna need him, too…

My impulsive release of everything that I had been suppressing for weeks on end gave a pointed intensity to my emotion, but his fervour matched my own. And though I don't know who moved first, somehow he was on the bed beside me and I was falling into his protective embrace, relishing the escalation of sensation that his attention evoked in me until I was beyond knowing anything but him… Our souls became permanently intertwined, then, and the void evaporated as our love and need exploded into uncontrollable fits of passion.

**__**

…fall in love… with the One…

We became lovers that night, in every possible physical and emotional sense. The fear that the word had instilled in me earlier was gone, and in its place was a complete, languid serenity the like of which I had never before felt. The experience coursed with the full-scale intensity of the real world. Later, sleep came easily to both of us. Neo held me close—his breath tickled my neck. I could feel his chest move against my back, his legs tangled with mine, and his hands clasped protectively over my own… I'd never felt so safe. This was love, this was life--this was what it meant to be free. 

***

**__**

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'…

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

-T.S. Eliot


End file.
